Many advertisements carefully avoid trying to explain why their product is superior to whatever other options there may be. A commercial, say, from Visa that tries to prove why it’s better than Mastercard runs the risk of engaging viewers’ rationality and skepticism—but an emotional commercial about a beautiful wedding ceremony that ends with the Visa logo might create a positive association, which viewers might then associate with that product.
Viewers of these sorts of advertisements should realize that they haven’t actually learned anything about whether a particular product is useful or good.
While advertisements have existed for basically as long as people have sold things, in recent years, ads have shifted their techniques and construction to match the trends of culture and technologies like social media. One of the key examples of this shift involves the role of the “influencer.”
Influencers are people who make their living by posting on social media. And while they often get some money from the platforms themselves (i.e. TikTok or YouTube), many make the bulk of their income from sponsorships—brands wanting to use their influence to advertise a product.
It can be powerful to see an engaging, charismatic influencer talking excitedly about a product. When the DudePerfect guys tell you to play their new Fortnite game mode, it’s a powerful incentive to check it out. And even though influencers are legally required to disclose that they were paid to shill a product, the strategy still gets audiences thinking about a specific product.
Given this, one of the most important questions around ads is whether or not the viewer knows they’re being advertised to. Here are a few different types of sponsored content that viewers should be aware of:
- Influencer ads. These are paid, first-person endorsements, which are legally required to be marked as “sponsored,” “paid,” or “ad,” but this is not always done prominently.
- Overt Ads. These come in the form of things like commercial breaks and Billboards.
- Sponsorships. Big brands will sometimes pay someone, like an athlete to wear/use their products (think Nike paying Michael Jordan to wear their shoes on the court).
- Product placement. Brands will sometimes pay to have their products included in the midst of a show or movie. Sometimes this is done subtly; other times it looks like this.
There are some brands like RayCon, BetterHelp, or Vessi who have become popular brands seemingly because of their marketing pushes on social media. Need counseling? If you’ve been watching a lot of YouTube videos, BetterHelp might be your first thought, despite the fact that BetterHelp has been subject to much criticism.
Media literacy is in part about not taking everything people say at face value—about developing an interior dialogue of “trust, but verify.” And while, ideally, influencers would only promote products and organizations they actually use and love, the reality is that many will promote any brand that pays them enough money. Regardless of how helpful that brand is, being constantly encouraged to purchase or engage with them from an influencer you enjoy or look up to can be powerful.
Of course, the end goal of all advertisements is that the person being advertised to becomes self-motivated to purchase or use a product—telling themselves it was their own idea. The product just becomes a name in the audience’s head, and they forget where they heard it in the first place. The idea is incepted.